friends and poems

it has been a while since my last post -- this is partly due to my craving a pause to collect my thoughts after finishing the spring look book series, but it is mostly due to the fact that, well, summer. but this is not to say that I haven't been doing anything tsii. indeed, I have begun to expand tsii to not only house my jewelry and other up-cycled creations, but as a small press for my poetry, and soon for the works of others as well. tsii made press keeps the aesthetic and ethics of tsii, using recycled and found materials for simple, classic designs, all handmade, handbound, and heart-felt.

these particular chapbooks, flora and his dark box, are a series of poems about the two years I spent in new york, and the friends that I found there. I tried to capture some of what we taught each other about ourselves, as humans and as women.

two weekends ago I got to visit one of these friends in her hometown, seattle, to celebrate independence day and her twenty third birthday. we stayed at the beautiful home she was watching for a family friend in capitol hill. every day was hot and sunny, and punctuated by blessed dips in the city's lakes. it was during one of these dips, with the just-full moon watching like a goddess in the sky there above the city skyline, that I realized one of the things I had been trying to get at with my poems. these girls -- piper, rachel, autumn -- and I shared a need for moments. for blissful, uncapturable, red-alive moments. I told piper it was like living inside of a photograph, like being a photograph, instead of looking at one. the feminine, photogenic moment, perhaps.

I made piper this necklace for her birthday. the warm turquoise color and the circular and tear drop shapes reminded me not only of her, but of seattle -- although it has hardly rained on any of my trips there! the outer circle is a guitar string, the inner pendant an earring that once belonged to my roommate's grandmother. the chain is thrifted, and the beads at the bottom are from a vintage turtle bead necklace that's become one of my classic resources for tsii jewelry.

one of the poems in flora and his dark box is named after piper. it speaks to some of these moments we shared, in and outside of the city.

flora and his dark box is sold out, but stay tuned for future chapbooks from tsii. all photos by elena stanton.